Femslash February: This Infinite Ache of Regret
by mochiinvasions
Summary: And she has her answers – Meenah, always Meenah, and this silly girl who captured her heart and ranges far and wide with it always in captivity; this silly, beautiful magical girl who always returns for her.


_Ah, what detains thee, Phaon,  
So long from Mitylene,  
Where now thy restless lover  
Wearies for thy coming?_

_A fever burns me, Phaon;  
My knees quake on the threshold,  
And all my strength is loosened,  
Slack with disappointment._

_But thou wilt come, my Phaon,  
Back from the sea like morning,  
To quench in golden gladness  
The ache of parted lovers._

/

_Phaon, O my lover,  
What should so detain thee,_

_Now the wind comes walking  
Through the leafy twilight?_

_All the plum-leaves quiver  
With the coolth and darkness,_

_After their long patience  
In consuming ardour._

_And the moving grasses  
Have relief; the dew-drench _

_Comes to quell the parching  
Ache of noon they suffered._

_I alone of all things  
Fret with unsluiced fire._

_And there is no quenching  
In the night for Sappho,_

_Since her lover Phaon  
Leaves her unrequited._

(40-41)

* * *

They say never to fall in love with a wild thing, and yet Aranea knew from the first day she met Meenah that there was never a chance of anything other than love. Meenah is, in all her glory, the very opposite of Aranea – proud and yet she values the pithiness of a few good words; bold and ostentatious, rude and loud and yet able to maintain friendships; honest, blunt and fierce in her desires. Meenah says that from the minute she first saw Aranea she knew she was the one – the one she wanted, the one she set her heart on. Aranea finds this funny as the first time they met she was completely bundled up and fairly young.

They met first on the shore of the sea, when Aranea was lost and wandering for the sake of trying to find anything, and Meenah was bored and adventuring close to the shore. Aranea was standing with the toes of her boots in the water, watching with wary eyes and regretting drifting away from her group. Meenah stumbled out of the sea onto the shore, unsteady on her legs and unable to understand Aranea's shock at the way she walked around without a shirt and her legs covered by a scrap of fabric, not feeling the cold as she lead Aranea back to her family. She turned to thank her and saw nothing, except maybe a head poking up from the water, and so wrote it off as nothing more than a dream.

Imagine her surprise when, twelve years later she was sitting, mid-summer, on the shore by herself, in a skirt and loose shirt that was falling off her shoulders, blanket on sand, umbrella above head and book in hand, and Meenah popped her head up from the water and walked onto the sand, a little more steady and a lot more confident.

Over the course of the summer they got to know each other, Meenah fell in lust and Aranea fell in love, and they came so close to acting on it several times and it never worked out. Aranea introduced Meenah to her family, Meenah came clean about the whole shape shifting water-dweller thing, they hung out, went swimming and became fast friends. But then the end of summer came, Aranea had to go back to college and Meenah to her shoal, and winter happened – Aranea nearly died and Meenah migrated across the world and back again, until on the first day of her summer and the day Meenah returned, Aranea stood on the shore as the sun set. She watched the waves and felt the wind in her hair, and then she heard Meenah's voice across the wind.

It was like a scene in a movie, Aranea running down the beach and Meenah running up from the waves, transforming and rising in one smooth move to come splashing out of the water. They met each other as the sea became land, Aranea threw her arms around Meenah and Meenah kissed her squarely on the lips. And then they became girlfriends.

But life goes on, one of them moves and the other doesn't – Aranea graduated and lives by the sea now, Meenah cannot abandon the shoal and must migrate with the rest of them. Aranea vows one day to follow them across the sea, sharing their adventures and exploring the world with them, but for now she counts out each lonely day and sits/lies/stands by the shore, watching the waves and the sun set, working a boring job and living a boring life, dealing with family members advising or admonishing her as they see fit and waiting, always waiting.

It is the last day before Meenah's return and Aranea feels it like and itch under her skin – why does she delay so long? What holds her back from Aranea's embrace and drives her into this madness, legs shaking, arms trembling, mind scattered like rocks on the sand? Where is she waiting, is she kissing someone else, is she desperately beating her way across the water, goading on her shoal and doubling back and forth? Is she as mad as Aranea, does she feel the impatience like a sting inside her veins, does-

-and she is there, running up from the water and they are hugging each other and kissing and kissing, and Meenah pushes her back on the sand and Aranea is wearing what she wore the second day they met and Meenah lies above her and beside her and ends the madness, scratches the itch and draws breaths from Aranea that fulfil her and render her sane again.

/

But it never stops, really – it never ends. It is autumn and Meenah has just left again and Aranea has another job, one that this time engages her and keeps her mind away from the ache, and it's only on her days off that she lets herself feel the loneliness. It's always like this: it starts with a sharp pain, like catching your fingernail and waiting till you get home to cut the skin off; then the dull ache, like sitting down after standing all day; then the numbness, like when you lie down for too long and your legs feel like anchors; then the nervousness, like the days leading up to an interview; then the madness, like the hours before a concert.

Now it is the dull ache, and the rains come back again, and everything is drenched again – the trees and earth and plants parched, waiting for the storms to feed them and bring them life. Aranea feels like a tree herself, so long now parched that Meenah's return is like waiting for the dew-drench, the life-giving waters and the self-affirming rains. It is only November, her mind tells her, but she watches her friends with their partners and lovers, and she watches the plants grow before the cold comes, and every day she feels Meenah's absence and every day she dulls it, waiting.

But every day she sees her friends, and the smiles when their lovers arrive, and every day she longs for them to know, to understand, that when one loves a wild thing, one cannot expect them to wait around forever, and just as Aranea cannot cast off her human skin and join Meenah's pack, Meenah cannot cast off her water-dwelling nature and join Aranea permanently on the land. She sees a picture of a human girl lying face-down on a rock and a mermaid girl in the water, leaning up to reach for her. Both their mouths are open and their lips are nearly touching, but she thinks that on paper they will always have that space, those imperceptible inches between them, always but never quite, and she longs more than ever.

She longs around people, feeling their connections and their happiness, and she longs on her own, when the nights go slow and she has only herself for company and Meenah, with her wickedness and bravery and inventive mind is no longer there to keep her company, journeying across the sea on her own too.

* * *

_O heart of insatiable longing,  
What spell, what enchantment allures thee  
Over the rim of the world  
With the sails of the sea-going ships?_

_And when the rose-petals are scattered 5  
At dead of still noon on the grass-plot,  
What means this passionate grief,—  
This infinite ache of regret?_

/

_Surely somehow, in some measure,  
There will be joy and fulfilment,—  
Cease from this throb of desire,—  
Even for Sappho!_

_Surely some fortunate hour  
Phaon will come, and his beauty  
Be spent like water to plenish  
Need of that beauty!_

_Where is the breath of Poseidon,  
Cool from the sea-floor with evening?  
Why are Selene's white horses  
So long arriving?_

(42-43)

* * *

Sometimes, she wonders where Meenah is, where she delays across the sea, all the miles between them, what she is seeing and why she lingers. She thinks about the world as it seems through Meenah's eyes, all the wonders she experiences and the marvels that enchant her away.

She wonders if Meenah is detained by another girl on another shore, staying for one season only before leaving again, or if she plies her nature as her trade, performing for two weeks only, before they travel once more. Perhaps she uses her time to explore new worlds and new places or perhaps she is merely travelling the whole time, constantly pushing and pulling herself until the time she can race up the beach as Aranea races down to embrace each other again.

It is the start of spring and the numbness is slowly bleeding into the nervousness, as she starts to stop not feeling the longing anymore and begins to understand why people get jittery the day before dates. She seems to be constantly thinking about what she's done and how she's acted for the past year, devising in her mind the best way to tell the stories and contriving how to introduce her to all her friends. But the lack of numbness also means the start of the pain, and soon each minute without her feels like a constant slap to the face, a constant aching in her middle and a constant sorrow beneath her skin. Slowly, she begins to spend every waking minute missing her intensely, and wondering, constantly wondering – why does she grieve so? Why is she torn between sorrow and regret, and the feeling that if she hadn't loved, she wouldn't hurt? Why does Meenah linger over the rim of the world?

/

Meenah makes her wait this time – makes her count down the hours in anxiousness. She paces her room until she cannot breathe inside its walls, sits on the shore until the sound of the waves drives her mad, runs across the ground until her muscles burn, shakes out her nerves and excitement.

Meenah lingers ever longer, each minute a torture, and Aranea waits as if parched, starving for Meenah's braveness, her beauty, her sweet and bright _life. _She stands on the sea shore as afternoon bleeds into evening and her eyes range far across the sea, searching for a sign of her beloved's return.

The wind blows onto her face and raises goosebumps across her skin, her eyes water and she pulls her hands in tight, waiting, always waiting. Evening begins to darken and the moon begins to rise, and the time of Meenah's return ticks ever closer.

* * *

_(__Let love be your sea-star!)_

(52)

* * *

It starts as a particular rush of the waves, and Aranea raises her head suddenly, as if catching some sound imperceptible to all others. She stands up and she sees it – Meenah raises her head above the water and Aranea knows without doubt that a smirk crawls across her face. Aranea drops whatever she was holding and begins to run down the beach – in the water, Meenah beats her tail ever stronger, transforming to human legs the minute she can touch the ocean floor and splashing up through the water, the scraps that cover her wet through and-

-and they meet, and it is beautiful. They crash into each other like waves on the shore, and Aranea throws her arms around Meenah and feels her lungs open up again, her body relax and her heart slow down, the crescendo broken as they try not to fall over. Meenah is leaning back and kissing her all over, again and again, raising goosebumps across her skin and sending a smile across her face and Aranea leans her head back and smiles wide. She takes Meenah's face in both her hands and kisses her straight on the lips, feeling the smile on Meenah's face and her arms around her waist and when they break apart she leans her head onto Meenah's shoulder and presses soft kisses to her bare skin.

'You returned,' she says 'you returned, you returned.'

Meenah smiles and replies 'of course. Where did you think I would go? You're here so I came back here for you, and I'll stay for you. Where else is there?'

'The rest of the world,' Aranea mumbles and Meenah pulls her head back, puts her hands on Aranea's shoulders and looks her straight in the eye.

'The rest of the world is pretty fantastic, let me tell you. But it doesn't have you. You're here. So I returned for you.'

And she has her answers – Meenah, always Meenah, and this silly girl who captured her heart and ranges far and wide with it always in captivity; this silly, beautiful magical girl who always returns for her.

* * *

OTP YO also Meenah is a water-dwelling mermaid/selkie kinda thing. Idk. Happy Valentine's Day!


End file.
